Rob Trujillo of Metallica says Cliff Burton was a better musician

Bassist of Metallica, Robert Trujillo shared some kind words about Cliff Burton the legendary bass player from Metallica. In the article Rob Trujillo says Cliff Burton was a better musician.

Trujillo tells Guitar World, “I was playing with Ozzy Osbourne when I auditioned for Metallica in 2002. One of Cliff’s closest friends, Mike Bordin of Faith No More, was also in the band. I was staying at Mike’s house in San Francisco while I was preparing for the audition, and in the guest room where I was practising, there was a big photo of Cliff on the wall. One night at 2 a.m., I looked up and saw the photo. I spoke to it and promised, ‘Cliff, I won’t let you down. I’ll give it my best shot.’ In a strange way, I feel connected to Cliff, as if I knew him.”

Trujillo has a great reputation as a bassist, but he still shows reverence and humility towards Cliff Burton’s contribution to Metallica. He said, “Cliff was absolutely amazing for Metallica. His ideas, his presence, and the direction he was taking the bass and metal were so special. He was such a physical player with an incredibly confident stage presence. He played what he felt, and that was all that mattered. If you didn’t like it, that was just too bad!”

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Trujillo also highlights Burton’s musical prowess. “No disrespect to my bandmates, but Cliff was older than the rest of the guys and a better musician in many ways. He was a true musician’s musician with a broad range of creative skills. He could play the piano and was familiar with classical music, and was also a fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd. He would even ask Kirk [Hammett] to show him Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar solos so he could play them on bass. This was a unique thing for a bass player to do back then, and I thought it was so cool. Cliff was a force to be reckoned with on many different levels.”

Cliff Burton appeared on Metallica’s first three albums, “Kill ‘Em All,” “Ride the Lightning,” and “Master of Puppets,” before his untimely death in a bus crash in Sweden in 1986. Jason Newsted took over as the bassist from 1986 to 2001, and Robert Trujillo officially joined the band in 2003.